The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Every blue moon a good idea comes rolling down to the South End. Or at least a crazy idea so goofus, it catches the air on fire around it. Viagra Falls exploded on the scene right before oil prices shot through the roof in Jimmy Carter’s reign. Ernie Crandall bought up the old Camp Camano cabins, all 12 of the dilapidated clapboard units, tore the worst two down, then restored the remaining 10 to like-new condition. Each had its own bathroom, unlike the shared bathhouse of the 1920’s, and each got a fully equipped kitchenette, a TV set with adult VCR movies, and a queen sized bed.

Ernie gave each cabin its uniquely distinct ‘theme’. Suite #7, for instance, was advertised as the “The Caveman: for the Primitive in all of us.” The Rancho Deluxe was touted as “a cross between rawhide and satin.” It sported cowhoof lamps and a table supported by three sets of longhorns. The Casanova had a “heart shaped bed, red boudoir and a shower curtain to make a sheik blush.” Ever the P.R. specialist, Ernie provided local reporters and their editor with free introductory accomodations. Needless to say, Viagra Falls received lavish praise and exceptional press coverage. The South End, to most Seattleites, soon became the Sodom and Gomorrah of the island archipelago, a playground for bacchanalian delights and salacious get-aways. Ernie was booked for six months in advance and the Falls, despite a cascade of water of any sort, was brimming to overflow.

All this notoriety brought not only customers, but the wrath of the Little Church of the Ravine, one of whose members was a County Health inspector. Septic violations became frequent and building code violations were uncovered. Not coincidentally #4 was renamed the Pastor’s Hostage Wife cabin, a romper room for Sado-Masochists. Ernie held the hounds at bay for a time, but finally decided he might prosper financially better in a less morally upright area closer to the urban areas of Sin City. And so the South End narrowly escaped becoming Las Vegas North and a magnet for lovers. Some of us, of course, mourn the loss.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/audio-outhouse-etiquette.mp3[/podcast]audio — outhouse etiquette

I been making lately, down at the Diner’s restroom, a sociological study of commode values. Oh, I know, you’re thinking my god, can’t we just leave well enough alone? But I’m an Observer of all things South End and I don’t intend to leave a stone unturned or a bathroom unscrutinized. What I been noticing is this: a lot of the boyz won’t touch a seat or a flush handle. They’d rather leave their offerings for the next occupant than risk some ugly herd of germs jumping onto their ungloved hand, apparently because they either won’t wash them or they don’t think there’s enough anti-bacterial power in the washroom handsoap.

I used to think South Enders were pretty salty fellows, tough as galvanized roofing nails, but apparently not. Maybe all this chatter about Bird Flu Pandemics has created a backlash response: CHICKENITIS. I think it’s got to stop, men. I think you got to step up to the plate — or the bowl — and put your Big Girl Panties on and just be as courageous as you can be. If the seat is in the Down position, for Pete’s sake, wrap your little hand in toilet paper and put it in the Up mode – don’t whiz through the hole and leave the next Sitter a splattered seat. It’s unworthy and it’s Piggish, not to mention Priggish. Jeez, fella, were you born in a damn outhouse?

And when you’re done, flush yer mess!! I KNOW your mama trained you better than this. Even a dog kicks a little dirt over his scat so Man Up, you little wooses. You’re giving us South Enders an odorous reputation. Although … I will say, the womenfolk might start appreciating a seat that’s left Up instead of one defiled and Down.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/audio-artistic-real-estate-signs.mp3[/podcast]audio — artistic real estate signs

The wag who said the only certainties in life are taxes and death never dropped into the many real estate offices on the South End for a ‘free’ map. An earthquake could separate us from the rest of the Civilized World and no matter the land values, real estate would be the Real Show. If a nuclear explosion ended most life as we know it, there’d still be cockroaches and realtors, both equally adaptable to any environment.

Not that I’m suggesting they’re equally unsavory. I can list a whole lot of professions more detestable than a land and home salesman. But most of those are SOME kind of salesman, from snake oil to stocks and bonds. And it’s not that I think they’re inherently dishonest or greedy. Most are good folks and most are poor as me. It’s just that there are so damn many of them. They’re more prolific than us artists who apparently breed up every holler and down every ravine. So many …. none can make a decent living competing with one another. The folks who moved here either become artists or realtors because there’s no other employment available within a tank of $4 a gallon gas.

So now we got 17 flavors of real estate, everything from ReFlux Realty to Windy Rear, all vying for the same properties. Which, if you’ve lived here more than the time it takes to close a mortgage, means about a third of us are selling, a third are buying and about half must be the realtors. Drive down the island and it looks like more For Sale signs than mailboxes some years. It’s too bad the signs aren’t painted by the artists — we’d become the Art Island practically overnight, famous up and down the Sound.

But don’t tell the realtors – it would only draw more Art Lovers hoping to buy a small studio. And in a year or two, they’d become real estate agents themselves. It’s a vicious circle and we need to break the cycle. Although … I’ll worry more when the realtors start painting tourist art.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/audio-help-from-the-government.mp3[/podcast]audio — help from the government

Ma and me got this notion back when she first arrived by mail order – hoping for a new start, a New Land, an employed suitor, only to find herself at the tail end of an island where jobs and work were non-existent – to start our own little business. Being a librarian, well, an unemployable librarian unless she wanted to commute to hell and gone, she considered a used book store. We dug around a little, looked into renting a space above some shops in downtown Stanwoodopolis and made inquiries. They wanted a three year lease, no escape clause. We worried the elderly would never make it up the stairs. Or the lazy either. And we fretted that the illiteracy rate of Stanwoodopolis might spell our doom the first year and we’d owe two more years of rental on the dust bunnies.

Our next entrepreneurial investigation was to start a nursery, maybe buy some land, plant a few botanicals, grow the business organically. Meaning, it would be a slow return on our investment. But hell, we weren’t hedge fund managers, we were managers of hedges. We’d do it the old fashioned way, work hard, be frugal, build the business step by step.

We needed a few acres and a water source. Down on the South End there was plenty of acres, not much water. We didn’t have the money to buy a parcel AND dig a well so we looked for land with springs, something we could dam up a little stream maybe and use it to irrigate in the drought months, and sure enough, we found a place a mile south, got the asking price – about $15,000 for five acres – then called the County to make certain we could operate a nursery.

The nice folks at the County said they didn’t know. We could if we lived on that five acres, not sure if we didn’t. I said we sort of need to know if we were going to buy the land and get a loan to start up operations. They said they just couldn’t say yes but they didn’t want to discourage us by saying no either.

I won’t say we had a real firm business plan developed, just some seedlings of ideas really, mostly like the kind that die off for lack of money. Or water. Or a county closing us down when word got out we were operating an Illegal Flower Operation. In the end we didn’t buy the land and we didn’t go into debt and we didn’t corner the nettle market on the South End. We did manage to make a Go of it here, we worked various jobs, we stayed together. I’m kinda glad the County wasn’t more helpful. I’m real glad we never asked about a marriage license.

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/audio-fiscal-fitness.mp3[/podcast]audio — fiscal fitness

On the capitalistic South End there’s no end to entrepreneurial recklessness. Folks move here for what once was cheap digs only to discover this is the Outback for employment where only the strong survive. Or retirees with strong pensions. The rest? They start their own bizness. Or become artists who naturally disdain business — and of course become what we recognize from time immemorial as Starving Artists.

Jimmy’s Fitness Center opened last year next to the O-Zi-Ya Auto Body Shop. Jimmy figured, according to wags down at the Diner, that this would give us South Enders complete Body Works. Like a lot of our start-up enterprises, Jimmy’s Fitness Center was, oh, a tad undercapitalized. The Bank of Stanwoodopolis, burnt too many times by wild-eyed, far-fetched business plans from south of the Mt. View/Dixon Line, looked askance at Jimmy’s loan application before turning him down flat. Jimmy turned to his friends and family for fiduciary assistance, a primitive form of venture capitalism, and decided to go ahead and throw the dice.
He figured if he could last six months, get some monthly memberships going, he’d be okay. Course, he bought some pretty well used equipment from dreamers before him, mostly stationary bikes that pedaled like rusty 3 speeds up a dirt road hill, a couple of stairmasters and for good measure hung a punching bag up, I guess to let customers vent on the speedbag rather than Jimmy. Country music provided the ambiance Jimmy thought we would appreciate … or Brenda did, Jimmy’s shapely receptionist and fitness instructor. Better maybe than religious ministry, but sadly off the mark by a country mile or two when it came to judging our musical inclinations.

A few clientele came the first introductory month, half off. But no one really liked waiting their turn for the one shower and rumors of Brenda and Jimmy’s extended shared water escapades sure didn’t bring new business in and actually provoked an outcry from the Mabana Church of the Ravine. Not to mention Jimmy’s wife Lisa.

None of us were unduly surprised when the Fitness Center quietly closed. Last any of us heard, Jimmy and Brenda were off to Colorado to raise golden retrievers at the J&B Puppy Farm outside Ft. Collins. On the South End, entrepreneurs never die, they just recapitalize.